sanctuary

Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Reinhart-Rogoff analysis
has set off a firestorm, at least among “insiders,” and that's a
problem in and of itself. The real question for most of us who
are not economists, statisticians or think tank specialists is will
there be some positive outcome as a result of this uproar?

The only truthful response
is that it's hard to say at this point in time. In America at least,
most of us, rich and poor, have been uncomfortable talking about
“class war.” It has however been the monster in the closet or the
crazy aunt in the attic for most of our history, especially after the
Civil War ended in 1865.

Paul Krugman in a recent NYT
article (The 1 Percent's Solution) said that, “What, after all, do
people want from economic policy? The answer, it turns out, is that
it depends on which people you ask.”

There have been a flurry of
articles about Reinhart-Rogoff. Jared Bernstein, a well known
economist currently at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in
a recent article in Salon (How to prevent future Reinhart-Rogoff melt
downs) said—without actually saying it—that economics is not real
science. No it's not and never has been. For those interested in
learning more about the Reinhart-Rogoff analysis and what it means
from the arcane to the general see 'Additional Reading.'

What have we learned

This story, like so many
others, is really about that we all have some responsibility for what
happened. Of course we ought to develop a keener skepticism about
what “experts” claim (far different from cynicism), demand better
informed journalists and commentators, demand a more rigorous
intellectual process in the field of economics, demand that public
officials have a degree of integrity and knowledge and ultimately
demand a citizenry (at least a significant portion) that is not so
uninformed and disinterested as to be mere impediments to change.
This story will continue (globally) for some time to come.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Knowledge is a public good
and increases in value as the number of people possessing it
increases.

(John Wilbanks, vice
president of science at Creative Commons)

The issue

Let's call it the
Reinhart-Rogoff brouhaha, which virtually no one knows about, well,
almost no one knows about it, except some economists, public policy
types and maybe some literate politicians. It turns out to be
important however because it impacts probably the majority of
Americans as well as a lot of non-Americans throughout the world.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth
Rogoff are two well known Harvard economist that have exerted
considerable influence on the economic policy of the U.S. and likely
in Europe as well. Their influence has been on the side of economic
austerity rather than economic stimulation, beloved by not just
conservatives and assorted ideologues.

The Reinhart-Rogoff “law”
(it's not) states that once a country's gross debt to GDP ratio
crosses the threshold of 90 percent, economic growth slows. Debt
therefore becomes terrifying, a monster to be avoided, a nightmarish
scenario that will destroy civilization. Uh-huh.

(For a clear explanation of
the Reinhart-Rogoff controversy see Paul Krugman's article in the
NYT, 4/18/13, entitled The Excel Depression).

The science thing and the
problem with Reinhart-Rogoff

What we call the modern
scientific process had its beginning in the 17th century.
It gradually began to systematize knowledge about the natural or
physical world and constructed the elements of the scientific
process. It has generally worked remarkable well, in part because
it's transparent and concerned with HOW things work.

If you take the spectrum of
science today you might go from physics to chemistry to biology to
medicine to the social sciences, no one area more or less valid than
the other—in terms at getting at the “Truth”--but the degree of
quantitative validation and specific proof is more demanding in
physics, for example, than probably any other area, at least for the
moment.

What seems to stand out as
you learn the basics of the Reinhart-Rogoff study, which was first
published in 2010, is how sloppy the original analysis actually was,
in many ways making it easier for those individuals who wanted to to
jump on the austerity bandwagon.

It turns out that data was
missing, questionable statistical procedures were used and an
important coding error was made. Correlations were suggested in the
study but those are not the same thing as “cause.”Hypotheses were
seemingly offered as facts, but the long and short of the study is
that there was never a “90 percent threshold.”

No, economics by any stretch
of the imagination can not be called “hard” science at the
present time, but the subject could use a far more rigorous process
in determining the validity of many of its key concepts, especially
in light of its central role in public policy and the impact on
individuals. Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank,
said back in 2008 that, “We were wrong quite a good deal of the
time.” Greenspan was a master of understatement.

In fairness, as Paul Krugman
has pointed out, there were economists that were skeptical of the
original study but it took a 28 year old graduate student from the
University of Massachusetts more than two years later to drive a
stake through the mystical dogma of the Reinhart-Rogoff study.
Reinhart and Rogoff finally allowedresearchers to look at their
original spreadsheet and—the results couldn't be replicated,
replication of course happens to be a basic early step in the
scientific process.

Searching for a conclusion

The Reinhart-Rogoff study
appears to be a fairly deceptive piece of work, which most likely has
led to some unsound economic policies for the United States and some
unwanted consequences overseas. Yet, it probably raises some larger
questions as well.

If, as we Americans
proclaim, at least officially, a democratic society of some kind
requires a reasonably informed and engaged citizenry … well, which
way are we going?

Second, beware of the
“temple priests,” be they from the public or private domain,
setting themselves up as the guardians and protectors of our
knowledge. We can find them almost everywhere today, classifying
documents of one kind or another, claiming patent protection for
virtually everything and stifling open inquiry whenever possible—in
the name of the public good of course. What will we ultimately decide
to do? It requires some effort.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Laura Snyder, a science
historian and professor of philosophy, has stated that the word
“scientist” was used for the first time 180 years ago at a
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, on
June 24, 1833. Has it been only 180 years?

Prior to this time those who
pursued “scientific” endeavors, mostly gifted amateurs, called
themselves natural philosophers. All this gradually changed as
deductive reasoning ( testing hypotheses and theories) became a key
component of science, along with the creation of new scientific
institutions, external funding for scientific projects and a growing
belief that science ought to be for the public good.

Patenting of nature

Fast forward 180 years and
we currently have a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that deals
with the very structure of life itself. It's unlikely that the
majority of Americans and most people on the planet for that matter
have the slightest idea what is being debated and the potential
outcome, regardless of the Court's ultimate decision.

In simple terms, the case
before the Supreme Court is whether or not a company can patent human
genes. This is a case that could effect everyone—because it
involves DNA, the blueprint for life.

What constitutes a new gene?
Will research be stifled and the flow of information impeded? How
does a company recoup its investment, sometimes millions of dollars?
Who will have access to affordable new tests and procedures as a
result of any genetic breakthroughs? These are only a few of the
questions that will have to be debated--publicly--and which go way
beyond the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Joe Barton's rule

Joe Barton, a conservative
Republican congressman from Texas and strong supporter of the fossil
fuel industry, once apologized to BP (the company that caused the
worst oil spill in U.S. history) because the White House demanded
that the company pay millions of dollars for the clean up of the
Gulf.

While the congressman claims
that climate change does exist, he has consistently denied that there
is any human connection to climate change. He cites the great flood
in the Old Testament, before humankind burned hydrocarbons, as proof
that the climate certainly changes, but humans have nothing to do
with it.

Congressman Barton clearly
has every right to his beliefs and he can certainly cite the Old
Testament as “proof,” but it has nothing to do with modern
science, and that is a big problem and not just for Americans.

Magical thinking

If you were to Goggle
“perpetual motion machines” you would uncover a colorful history
going back to at least the Middle Ages. Hope springs eternal. The pmm
is a machine that continues to do work forever without acquiring
energy from an external source. The problem is that it violates all
the laws of known physics, like conservation of energy,
thermodynamics and Newton's laws of motion. But people keep trying.
It's the Joe Barton rule and that is a big problem.

The ecological economist
Herman Daly has said that it's “politically impossible to stop
growth,” while at the same time it's “biophysically impossible to
continue it ad infinitum.” We may need another 180 years.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

“Humans
are here by the luck of the draw,” remarked the late paleontologist
and evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould.

The escape

It only
requires some imagination: In 2012 twenty so-called "super
mice" escaped from an animal
research lab in upstate New York. Eight of the youngest adults had
human glial cells grafted into their brains as newborn mice.
Scientists believe these cells play an important role for humans in
both intellectual and cognitive processing capabilities.

Researchers
demonstrated that the mice had "improved" cognitive
capabilities, which included memory, learning and adaptive
conditioning. The remaining twelve mice included 6 that had had their
mysostatin gene shut down, resulting in increased muscle mass
and strength. The other six had undergone therapy resulting in
changes in slow-twitch (fatigue-resistant) and fast-twitch (bursts of
power) muscles.

These
mice could run about an hour longer than the 90 minutes a normal
mouse can run before fatigue sets in. A house mouse is able to run
approximately 900 meters or slightly more than half-a-mile, while
these enhanced mice proved to be capable of running some 1,800 m, more
than a mile. Along with their endurance, these particular mice were
also resistant to weight gain because of an increase in fat-burning
muscle. Is all of this science or pseudoscience?

The
20 escaped mice is fiction, but the particular experiments have in
fact been done in
research laboratories and reproduced, replicated and undergone peer
review, all part of the scientific process.

The best of all possible worlds

Mid
Missouri Public Radio recently had a piece on Kevin Wells, a
scientist at the University of Missouri—Columbia. Wells has been
studying genetics in animals for more than twenty years and he is
well aware of the scientific possibilities, such as making animals
resistant to swine flu, along with the potential concerns, such as
the human health impact, animal welfare and yes, animals escaping.

It's
quite likely we'll have a genetically engineered Atlantic salmon on
the U.S. market fairly soon, breakthroughs for better treatment of
human brain disorders not far off and possibly even “enhanced”
Homo sapiens sooner than we think.

Some
sort of genetic future has already arrived. What are we willing to do
in terms of genetic engineering and what kind of public policy debate
shall we engage in? If we have a scientifically illiterate society
and a disengaged citizenry, are we capable of making rational choices
and understand those that we've made?

But
back to our 20 missing mice. The year is 2100, 87 years from now. A
certain percentage of our super mice from 2012 survived and produced
off springs. Might they have evolved faster than humans? Will they
look far different from the average house mouse of today and how big
could they get? Could technology out pace our ability as humans to
understand what we have set in motion?

The
Theory of Evolution does not say that life moves inexorably toward a
higher level of complexity and maybe our mice will not, but it is
about the “luck of the draw.”

Google+ Followers

About Me

"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes--something known only to her and to the mountains." (Aldo Leopold, "Thinking Like a Mountain")
"We are the rich. We own America. We got it, God knows how, but we intend to keep it." (Frederick Townsend Martin, 19th century plutocrat)